Socio-syntax
Exploring the Social Life of Grammar

Challenging traditional assumptions around grammar, this book shows how language variation takes on social meaning in everyday interaction.

Emma Moore (Author)

9781108826198, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 February 2026

274 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.401 kg

'A landmark study of grammatical variation in spoken English.' Stephen Levey, Language in Society

How do we adapt our grammar to communicate social detail? Do all working class people have a local dialect or are we free to use language in ways that transcend our place in the social hierarchy? Seeking to answer these questions, this pioneering book is the first to exclusively and extensively address the relationship between social meaning and grammatical variation. It demonstrates how we use grammar to communicate alignments and stances and to construct our social style or social identity. Based on an ethnographic study of high school girls in Northern England, it also uses the author's own experiences as a working-class student, to argue for change in how we conceive of grammar and how grammar is taught in schools. Lively and engaging real life examples from the study are included throughout, bringing to life new contributions to debates in variationist sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropology.

1. Why does the social meaning of grammar matter?
2. The social landscape of Midlan High
3. How do we study the social meaning of grammatical variation?
4. How free are we to vary the grammar we use?
5. How do we use grammar to design our talk?
6. Does everyone use grammar to make social meaning?
7. How does grammar combine with other elements of language?
8. What does it mean to view grammar as a fluid, flexible social resource?.

Subject Areas: Sociolinguistics [CFB]